Martin Luther, Against the Sale of Indulgences Against the Sale of Indulgences by Martin Luther by Jim Jones , West Chester University of Pennsylvania (c.2012) Return to the Syllabus Questions and answers about indulgences, with special reference to Martin Luther's objections Sale of Indulgences by Hoblein the Younger As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, The soul from purgatory springs. --John Tetzel, Dominican indulgence vendor Questions & Answers Concerning Indulgences 1. What is an indulgence? An indulgence is the full or partial remission of temporal punishment for sins after the sinner confesses and receives absolution. Under Catholic teaching, every sin must be purified either here on earth or after death in a state called purgatory. 2. How did the practice of dispensing indulgences begin? The first known use of plenary indulgences was in 1095 when Pope Urban II remitted all penance of persons who participated in the crusades and who confessed their sins. Later, the indulgences were also offered to those who couldn't go on the Crusades but offered cash contributions to the effort instead.

In the early 1200s, the Church began claiming that it had a "treasury" of indulgences (consisting of the merits of Christ and the saints) that it could dispense in ways that promoted the Church and its mission. In a decretal issued in 1343, Pope Clement VI declared, "The merits of Christ are a treasure of indulgences." 3. How were indulgences used in Luther's time? In Luther's time, the pope delegated the privilege of dispensing indulgences. The Castle Church in Luther's Wittenberg, for example, was delegated the rare privilege granting full remission of all sins. Frederick the Wise, elector for the region of the Holy Roman Empire that included Wittenberg, took pride in a large collection of relics (over 19,000 holy bones and 5,000 other items*) of saints that supposedly provided the basis for granting indulgences that could reduce stays in purgatory by over 1.9 million years. These treasures were made available to believers on All Saints Day, November 1.

By viewing the relics and making the stipulated contribution, the believer could reduce a stay and purgatory while providing much needed financial support for Castle Church and the University of Wittenberg. Leo X, the pope in 1517, needed funds to complete the building of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Leo entered into an arrangement that essentially sold indulgence franchises that allowed the franchisee to retain about half the funds raised by selling indulgences in return for sending to Rome the other half for Leo's construction project. To encourage indulgence sales, Albert of Brandenburg, one winner of the privilege of selling indulgences, advertised that his indulgences (issued by the pope) came with a complete remission of sins, allowing escape from all of the pains of purgatory. Moreover, Albert claimed, purchasers of indulgences could use them to free a loved one already dead from the pains of purgatory that he or she might presently be experiencing. The going rate for an indulgence depended on one's station, and ranged from 25 gold florins for Kings and queens and archbishops down to three florins for merchants and just one quarter florin for the poorest of believers.

* The items in Frederick's collection included bones, teeth, hairs, and pieces of cloak and even a girdle from various saints. They also included a piece of straw and some strands of swaddling clothes from Christ's manger, a chunk of gold brought by one of the three Wise Men, a strand from the beard of Jesus, a twig from the burning bush of Moses, bread served at the Last Supper, and seven shreds from a veil sprinkled with blood of Christ. [Bainton, p. 53.] 4. What sermon about indulgences pushed Luther to act against indulgences? In proclaiming the special indulgence offered by Albert of Brandenburg, indulgence vendor John Tetzel promoted it with a sermon that included a jingle of his own creation: "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs." Tetzel made his way through Germany, entering towns as part of a procession that included local dignitaries, a cross bearing the papal arms, and the papal bull of indulgence carried on a velvet cushion. In the marketplace of each town, Tetzel would offer this sermon: Listen now, God and Peter call you.

Consider the salvation of your souls and those of your loved ones departed. You priest, you noble, you merchant, you virgin, you matron, you youth, you old man, enter now into your church, which is the Church of St. Peter. Visit the most holy cross erected before you and ever imploring you. Have you considered that you are lashed in a furious tempest amid the temptations and dangers of the world, and that you do not know whether you can reach the haven, not of your mortal body, but of your immortal soul? Consider that those who are contrite and have confessed and made contribution will receive complete remission of all their sins. Listen to the voices of your dear dead relatives and friends beseeching you and saying, "Pity us, pity us. We are in dire torment from which you can redeem us for a pittance." Do you not wish to? Open your ears. Hear the father saying to his son, the mother to her daughter, "We bore you, nourished you, brought you up, left you our fortunes, and you are so cruel and hard that now you are not willing for so little to set us free. Will you let us lie here in the flames?

Will you delay the promised glory?" Remember that you are able to release them, for as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory springs. Will you not then for a quarter of a florin receive these letters of indulgence through which you are able to lead a divine and mortal soul into the fatherland of paradise? [Bainton, pp. 60-61] Selling Indulgences – George Monbiot The trade in carbon offsets is an excuse for business as usual. By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 18th October 2006 Rejoice! We have a way out. Our guilty consciences appeased, we can continue to fill up our SUVs and fly round the world without the least concern about our impact on the planet. How has this magic been arranged? By something called “carbon offsets”. You buy yourself a clean conscience by paying someone else to undo the harm you are causing. The Co-op’s holiday firm Travelcare has just started selling offsets to its customers. If they want to fly to Spain, they pay an extra £3. Then they can forget about their contribution to climate change.

The money will be spent on projects in the developing world, such as building wind farms and more efficient cooking stoves. In August, BP launched its “targetneutral” scheme, enabling customers to “neutralise the CO2 emissions caused by their driving”(1). The consequences of an entire year’s motoring can be discharged for just £20. Again, your money will be invested in the developing world – “a biomass energy plant in Himachal Pradesh; a wind farm in Karnataka, India and an animal waste management and methane capture program in Mexico” – and you need have no further worries about what you and BP are doing to the atmosphere (or, for that matter, to the people of West Papua or the tundra in Alaska). It sounds great. Without requiring any social or political change, and at a tiny cost to the consumer, the problem of climate change is solved. Having handed over a few quid, we can all sleep easy again. This is not the first time that such schemes have been sold.

In his book The Rise of the Dutch Republic, published in 1855, John Lothrop Motley describes the means by which the people of the Netherlands in the 15th and 16th centuries could redeem their sins. “The sale of absolutions was the source of large fortunes to the priests. … God’s pardon for crimes already committed, or about to be committed, was advertised according to a graduated tariff. Thus, poisoning, for example, was absolved for eleven ducats, six livres tournois. Absolution for incest was afforded at thirty-six livres, three ducats. Perjury came to seven livres and three carlines. Pardon for murder, if not by poison, was cheaper. Even a parricide could buy forgiveness at God’s tribunal at one ducat; four livres, eight carlines.”(2) Just as in the 15th and 16th centuries you could sleep with your sister and kill and lie without fear of eternal damnation, today you can live exactly as you please as long as you give your ducats to one of the companies selling indulgences. It is pernicious and destructive nonsense. The problem is this.

If runaway climate change is not to trigger the irreversible melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets and drive hundreds of millions of people from their homes, the global temperature rise must be confined to 2C above pre-industrial levels. As the figures I have published in Heat show, this requires a 60% cut in global climate emissions by 2030, which means a 90% cut in the rich world. Even if, through carbon offset schemes carried out in developing countries, every poor nation on the planet became carbon-free, we would still have to cut most of the carbon we produce at home. Buying and selling carbon offsets is like pushing the food around on your plate to create the impression that you have eaten it. Any scheme that persuades us we can carry on polluting delays the point at which we grasp the nettle of climate change and accept that our lives have to change. But we cannot afford to delay. The big cuts have to be made right now, and the longer we leave it, the harder it will be to prevent runaway climate change from taking place. By selling us a clean conscience, the offset companies are undermining the necessary political battle to tackle climate change at home.

They are telling us that we don’t need to be citizens; we need only be better consumers. BP and Travelcare, like other companies, want to keep expanding their business. Offset schemes allow them to do so while pretending they have gone green. Yet aviation emissions, to give one example, are rising so fast in the UK that before 2020 they will account for the country’s entire sustainable carbon allocation(3). A couple of decades after that, global aircraft emissions will match the sustainable carbon level for all economic sectors, across the entire planet. Perhaps the carbon offset companies will then start schemes on Mars and Jupiter, as we will soon need several planets to absorb the carbon dioxide we release. Offsets, in other words, are being used as an excuse for the unsustainable growth of carbon-intensive activities. But these are by no means the only problems. A tonne of carbon saved today is far more valuable in terms of preventing climate change than a tonne of carbon saved in three years’ time. Almost all the carbon offset schemes take time to recoup the emissions we release today. As far as I can discover, none of the companies which sell them uses discount rates for its carbon savings (which would reflect the difference in value between the present and the future).

This means they could all be accused of unintentional but systemic false accounting. And while the carbon we release by flying or driving is certain and verifiable, the carbon absorbed by offset projects is less attestable. Many will succeed, and continue to function over the necessary period. Others will fail, especially the disastrous forays into tree-planting that some companies have made. To claim a carbon saving, you also need to demonstrate that these projects would not have happened without you -that Mexico would not have decided to capture the methane from its pig farms, or that people in India would not have bought new stoves of their own accord. In other words, you must look into a counterfactual future. I have yet to meet someone from a carbon offset company who possesses supernatural powers. At the offices of Travelcare and the forecourts owned by BP, you can now buy complacency, political apathy and self-satisfaction. But you cannot buy the survival of the planet. George Monbiot’s new book, Heat: how to stop the planet burning is published by Penguin. He has also launched a website – – exposing the false environmental claims of companies and politicians.

References: Martin Luther, the Sale of Indulgences, and the Reformation | Hacienda Publishing Martin Luther, the Sale of Indulgences, and the Reformation Western civilization The Sale of Indulgences A few words are in order regarding the Sale of Indulgences that Martin Luther so much decried. The clergy were authorized by the Catholic Church to absolve penitents from the guilt of his sins and from punishment in the hellish inferno of the hereafter, but it did not absolve them from doing penance on earth. We must remember that the substitution of monetary fines for punishment of a crime was a well established practice in secular European courts in the Middle Ages. The Catholic Church was following coeval practices. By making a monetary contribution to the church, a penitent would receive a partial indulgence not to commit further sins, while at the same time, diminishing the time period that he/she was to suffer in PURGATORY for remission of his sins. Most people do not understand that an indulgence did not cancel sins . Only a priest during a confession session could absolve a truly repentant penitent.

The best source I have found to understand this much maligned concept is Will Durant's The Story of Civilization, The Reformation: "An Indulgence, therefore, was the remission, by the church, of part of all of the temporal (i.e., not eternal) penalties incurred by sins whose guilt had been forgiven in the sacrament of penitence." For those who are not familiar with Will Durant, he was a former priest who lost his faith and became a superb historian and scholar. If anything, in later life, he was most influenced by Baruch Spinoza, the French philosophes, and the rationalism of the Enlightenment. I have read his complete, 12-volume series, The Story of Civilization, not once but twice. I detect between the lines that try as he might, he could not quite completely discard his Catholic learning and teaching. And so, in particular I recommend, Durant's "Epilogue in Elysium" between Voltaire and Pope Benedict XIV. It is a magnificent intellectual exchange! Some further thoughts on the Reformation...

The problem began with the obvious and what everybody knows, Martin Luther's (photo, below) objections to the Church doctrine on the sale of indulgences and the Holy See's spiritual power to remit sins, which Luther vehemently opposed when he nailed his 95 Theses on the door of the formidable Castle Church at Wittenberg on November 1, 1517. But there was also Luther's own spiritual crisis, doubts about his own salvation, the belief that inner faith alone, without the performance of good works, was all that is necessary to attain salvation (i.e., Justification by Faith). He ended up condemning priest celibacy, holy pilgrimages, the veneration of saints and sacred images, and the doctrine of infallibility of popes and general church councils. Luther also jettisoned the old sacramental rites, except baptism and the eucharist. A few years later he would defend the sacrament of the eucharist from the attack of another reformer at the Colloquy of Marburg (1529), by which he hoped to bring unity to the reformers, instead, it only sharpened his differences with Zwingli and the other dissenters.

On the eucharist, Luther continued to insist in the literal interpretation of transubstantiation, while Zwingli insisted that it was only a symbolic, metaphorical ritual. Let us also consider the troubling matter of economics. There was much wealth moving from the thriving Germanic north, now just beginning their Renaissance, to the Italian south, Rome. This transfer of wealth was highly resented. And so, in addition to theological arguments, Luther provided the northern Germanic principalities, led by princes, dukes, bishops, and other Electors, with an effective weapon to staunch this loss of wealth going on pilgrimages down south, used among other things to build St Peter's Cathedral, numerous churches, and generally adorn Rome and Italy with architectural and artistic beauties that awed the devout Christian pilgrims then and enchant the secular tourists today! There was also the issue of marriage and celibacy: Luther was soon ready to get married and work for a living. He married a 26-year-old ex-Cistercian nun and settled into a more comfortable existence and a large family.

Truth be known, the meandering celibate and sometimes mendicant monks in Spain, Italy, and France were also highly resented by those in the northern European countries, who had developed their own work ethic and wanted their own clergy to marry, have families, and work for a living. Luther had been protected by the Elector of Saxony, Frederic III, and soon the Reformation was fought by the secular German principalities, but Luther remained in touch with the German nobility who had supported him. And so when the issue of the bigamous marriage of Philip of Hesse came up, Luther and his right hand man, Phillip Melanchthon gave their consent. Obstinacy and the exigencies of the moment, on the part of Pope Clement VII (1523-1534), had resulted in a bitter dispute and the conflict of the Reformation reaching the British Isles in 1527. The English Reformation (briefly) And this brings us to the matter of Henry VIII, King of England, who was initially the Defender of the Faith (Catholic) against Luther and the Reformation.

But once he found that he could not obtain an annulment or a papal dispensation to divorce his wife, Catherine of Aragon, the aunt of Charles V Holy Roman Emperor, he began to have second thoughts about remaining a faithful defender of the Catholic faith. And so, when King Henry VIII also discovered that he could make a lot of money for himself and his nobility by seizing and confiscating the land and property of the Catholic Church in England, and at the same time divorce his wife who had not provided him with an heir, he jumped on the bandwagon of the "Reformation." He became a "Protestant" as well, and acquired a new, sprightly young wife, Anne Boleyn, who he, not long after, had beheaded for imaginary and concocted sins and "treason." By 1534, Henry VIII had the English Parliament pass the Act of Supremacy that established the Church of England as the religion of the realm and completed the formal dissolution of the remaining ties to the Catholic church. Henry VIII ended up with six wives, two of whom he had executed.

He also ended up immensely rich from all the stolen property and land taken from the Catholic churches and monasteries in the realm. If there was ever one king who needed beheading, it was this porcine monarch, Henry VIII (another was King Philip" the Fair" of France, but that's for another lesson) . Henry VIII established the Church of England, the Anglican Church, and made it the official state religion of England. It was in reference to this established state religion that the American Founding Fathers framed the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, not as a separation of church and state , but as "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Written by Dr. Miguel Faria This article was published exclusively for HaciendaPublishing.com on November 25, 2011. The article can be cited as: Faria MA. Martin Luther, the Sale of Indulgences, and the Reformation. HaciendaPublishing.com, November 25, 2011. Available from: Copyright Â©2011 Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D.

Your rating: None Average: 3.6 (43 votes) Selling Indulgences [R553 : page 5] SELLING INDULGENCES. In the dark ages, when Papacy held control of men's consciences and few dared to think, one method which she practiced to supply herself with money was the sale of indulgences. The indulgence was a permission to sin and yet be free from its consequences. Like all great evils it came in gradually, and at first consisted in the forgiveness of sins and remission of the penalty to all who would fight the church's battles-- holy wars as they were called--waged against all within her reach whom she deemed "heretics" and infidels. Heretics included all classes of Christians who differed from and did not support Papacy. Infidels were those who disbelieved in Christianity, such as the Mohammedans. Against these she waged her wars, and those who engaged in them and died in battle were sure of heaven, no matter what their previous course of life had been.

This cancellation of sins was offered on account, not of repentance and faith in the ransom, but for what they termed the "good work" of slaughtering the church's enemies in the crusades, etc. Thus indulgences got under headway. Afterward succeeding Popes and councils became still more bold, and argued that if they had a right to remit sins for service to the church, they had also the right to remit them for money for the church, and, if right for the living, it was right also for the dead. By and by they went still further and concluded that if they had a right to remit past sins for money, they had the same right to remit, or excuse, or grant indulgence for sins of the future. We could not object to this course of reasoning if its premise or starting point were right. If Papacy had one of these rights, we must conclude that she had the others also. But what right has any man to consider any sin cancelled except upon the conditions God lays down--not works, not money, but faith in the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. Some of these indulgences expressly mentioned the very sins which might be committed.

Some mentioned the number of years that the torments of Purgatory would be shortened to the indulged one. Of Pope John XII. it is recorded that he granted "ninety thousand years of pardons for deadly sins" for the devout repetition of three prayers written in a chapel in Rome. It was the sale of these future indulgences for money which awakened and aroused a few such honest souls as Luther and gave rise to the Reformation movement, called Protestant, because of their protests and objections to this and other evils recognized in Papacy. The crisis was reached when Julius I. and afterward Leo X. published indulgences [R554 : page 5] to those who should contribute money to the erection of the world-renowned St. Peter's cathedral at Rome, commenced A.D., 1506. The collecting of these funds from the sale of indulgences was committed to monks of the "Order of St. Dominic," among whom was the notorious Tetzel.

According to Luther's account they sold indulgences in the streets, market-places and taverns, teaching that every contributor, if he paid on his own account, opened to himself the gates of heaven, and, if on account of the dead, he instantly liberated a soul from purgatory. Tetzel traveled in state from town to town, bearing the official document or "bill" of Leo X. on a velvet cushion proclaiming to the credulous multitudes: "Indulgences are the most precious and sublime of God's gifts; this red cross has as much efficacy as the cross of Jesus Christ. Draw near and I will give you letters duly sealed, by which even the sins you shall hereafter desire to commit, shall be all forgiven you. There is no sin so great that indulgence cannot remit. Pay, only pay largely, and you shall be forgiven. But more than all this, indulgences save not the living alone, they also save the dead.

Ye priests, ye nobles, ye tradesmen, ye wives, ye maidens, ye young men, hearken to your departed parents and friends who call to you from the bottomless abyss:--'We are enduring horrible torment; a small alms would deliver us, you can give it, will you not?' The moment the money clinks in the bottom of the chest, the soul escapes from purgatory and flies to heaven. With ten groshen you can deliver your father from purgatory. Our Lord God no longer deals with us as God--he has given all power to the pope."* *Words of Tetzel--by H. Guinness. The following is the form of the indulgences, the blanks being filled to suit circumstances:-- "Our Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on thee;...and absolve thee by the merits of his most holy sufferings.

I, in virtue of the Apostolic power committed to me, absolve thee from all ...excesses, sins and crimes, that thou mayest have committed, however great and enormous they may be, and of whatever kind....I remit the pains thou wouldst have had to endure in purgatory....I restore thee to the innocence and purity of thy baptism, so that at the moment of death, the gates of the place of torment shall be shut against thee, and the gates of Paradise open to thee. And if thou shouldst live long, this grace [favor--indulgence] continueth unchangeable till the time of thy end. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. The brother John Tetzel, commissary, hath signed this with his own hand." A scale of prices was so fixed as to draw heavily from the rich and yet not overlook and miss the pennies of the poorer. For instance, the royal crime against the laws of the Church, of marriage with a first cousin cost $5,000, while the terrible sin of wife-murder or parricide cost only $20.

The advantage of Papacy in the promulgation of the doctrine of eternal and purgatorial torture is here manifest, and truly they left no power of eloquence unused to prove those awful doctrines, one of which--the worst--Protestantism has resolutely held on to, and as a sweet morsel refuses to give it up, though found contrary to God's character and Word. No wonder that such deep depravity brought its own overthrow, so that even the church of Rome subsequently found it necessary to condemn it at the council of Trent. But even yet the same principle is in force, though more carefully guarded. When Protestantism first stepped out it was upon the platform of "Justification by faith," and not by money, prayers or works. However, as we have seen heretofore, the lines of protest are gradually disappearing, and in many ways many of the sects are closely approaching a likeness of their mother. Even in this matter of "Indulgences" we find the spirit of the mother in the daughters.

Not that they go to the same extent of depravity in the matter: that would be impossible, for the Father of lies is too crafty to attempt to deceive men in so open a manner in this enlightened nineteenth century, but it is, nevertheless, a fact that indulgences are sold for money in Protestant churches in very many localities. It is so changed now, that a membership in the so-called churches is reckoned a passport to heaven. And memberships may readily be gained by those who are far from being saints, if they bring influence and money into the church. And even though they be known to be guilty of crimes against their church creeds, or worse, against the laws of God and men; if they have money which can be drawn from to build or furnish a little "St. Peter's," or to clear a church already built, of debt, they are unrebuked and continued in membership with all its implied rights of heavenly rest and happiness at the end. As the unblushing indulgences of Papacy aroused the indignation of unfettered minds three centuries ago, so this modern phase of indulgence is arousing the contempt of the saints and of the outside world.

But here, as there, good is resulting, for men are coming to see that while a membership of the true church, "whose names are written in heaven," is a sure guarantee of eternal life, etc., membership in earthly institutions, called churches, is a totally different matter. ==================== Martin Luther: A Journey to the Heart of the Reformation DVD - Christianbook.com Martin Luther: A Journey to the Heart of the Reformation DVD Lukas Media LLC / DVD Add To Cart Product Description When Martin Luther's bold protest was nailed to the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, he little realized the storm that would break as a consequence. The event shook the medieval church to its foundations and changed the religious and political world forever. In Luther's time the Church held sway. Luther's actions, however, or rather his reaction to a monk called Tetzel, the seller of papal indulgences, was to wrest power from the church and light a beacon which would illuminate all of Europe, and then the world! This documentary, filmed on location in Germany, takes you to the key places in Luther's life.

To Eisleben, his birthplace; to Erfurt where he studied at the university and where he served in the monastery; to Wvrms, scene of the famous Diet; to Wartburg Castle, where he was held prisoner; and to Wittenberg the setting for most of his life's work. In Wittenberg, you will see the famous doors where his 95 theses were nailed, the church where he preached, the university where he taught, and the building where he lived. Martin Luther, A Journey to the Heart of the Reformation documents the life and labors of the world's most famous reformer. Approx. 57 minutes. DVD Playable in Bermuda, Canada, United States and U.S. territories. Please check if your equipment can play DVDs coded for this region.

Learn more about DVDs and Videos Product Information Westminster John Knox Press / 2010 / Trade Paperback $5.99 Retail: Westminster John Knox Press / 2001 / Trade Paperback $17.39 Retail: Westminster John Knox Press / 2010 / Trade Paperback $17.39 Retail: Westminster John Knox Press / 2005 / Trade Paperback $13.99 Retail: 5 Stars Out Of 5 1 Reviews Publisher's Description In Luther's time the Church held sway. Luther's actions, however, or rather his reaction to a monk called Tetzel, the seller of papal indulgences, was to wrest power from the church and light a beacon which would illuminate all of Europe, and then the world This documentary, filmed on location in Germany, takes you to the key places in Luther's life. To Eisleben, his birthplace; to Erfurt where he studied at the university and where he served in the monastery; to Woorms, scene of the famous Diet; to Wartburg Castle, where he was held prisoner; and to Wittenberg, the setting for most of his life's work.

Product Reviews Selling Indulgences Selling Indulgences Recently, on a Christian television station, it was fund-raising time. Unfortunately, this means it was time to parade across the screen a line-up of fund-raising experts. These are preachers who travel around to different sites and exhort Christians to give money to various ministries, television and otherwise. Just about everyone of them has the same message. Sometimes the message is approached from one angle, and sometimes it is presented from another. But when all is said and done, the message is the same. The message is actually quite time-worn. The Roman Church of the middle ages used to preach it. It was the reason Martin Luther began his part of the reformation. Back then, it was called "selling indulgences." If you gave money to the church, the pope, or one of his representatives, God bestowed an indulgence upon you. An indulgence was usually a reduction of time you had to spend in "purguatory." In one case, it was a complete pardon. If you gave enough money for the right cause, the pope said that God would actually honor his promise to absolve you of your deserved punishment.

Today, of course, this practice isn't called "the selling of indulgences." Purguatory isn't brought into the picture, simply because most of the Christian television stations which practice this don't believe it exists. But many of these fund-raising preachers do sell God's favor. They sell financial prosperity, healing, freedom from depression, restored relationships, and even the salvation of your loved ones. They sell all of these -- openly and boldly. They just don't CALL IT "selling." The Bible is used as the authority for these teachings. These preachers have a whole list of scriptures lined up and tied together. They also rehearse testimony after testimony of how other people have given money to the ministry they represent, and have reaped the promised benefits. They likewise warn you that if you do not heed their message that you will have no way out of debt and sickness. The basic message is that you must "use your faith" by '"planting a seed." The seed, of course, is your money -- or perhaps your faith AND your money. You "plant it" by giving it to the ministry in question. God will then bring you a "harvest." The harvest is what you want from God.

Those who teach this heresy have, of course, heard all of the objections to their teachings. They overtly deny that they are saying we can BUY anything from God. In fact, some try to say that the reason you should "plant a seed" is so that God can bless you with a harvest, so that you can AGAIN GIVE by planting another seed. This makes the motive for giving sound like it is nothing more than a desire to give even more. And to some, that might sound legitimate. It might "sound" like a Godly motive. This "seed-faith" teaching has become so popular and widespread, that there are some so-called ministers who do nothing but teach that one message. They go around constantly assuring God's people that it is the Truth. They literially call themselves by the title "the man of God," and tell believers that they must believe "the man of God," and enter into the blessings of God by planting their money and faith in a particular ministry. One of the more telling things about such people is that you would be hard-pressed to find one of them who isn't themselves rich.

Afterall, if they convince hearers of their message, THEY are the ones who are going to receive the so-called "seeds." Or in other cases, these preachers simply receive a set percentage, or lumpsum amount, of the money they raise. So while they claim to have become well-to-do as a result of planting their own "seed," it is a hollow claim. Many of them are, in fact, greatly benefited by the money which they tell others they must send in to get God moving on their behalf. Perhaps the worst claim of all which some make is that I can, by "planting my seed," cause God to save my loved ones. My giving can either lift from my loved one whatever was blinding them to the Truth, or it can somehow impress God to save them. '"God honors faith," we are told. "And if we plant our seed by faith, then He will do mightly things to honor it." Imagine how terrible this makes God. Here is my loved one, lost and separated from God. And God isn't going to lift a finger to save them until I plant my seed. And if I never plant my seed? Is my loved one lost? Some would say yes.

Some would picture my loved one standing before the judgment seat of Christ, being told by Christ, "I wanted to save you. But your brother over there did not write the check. So I'm afraid you lose." And some might add, "And because your brother did not write the check, he is going with you." This is not sarcastic. This has actually been taught, on Christian television, by what appear to be mature, Christian teachers. It illustrates just how ridiculous, no, wicked, this heresy is. It actually denys the Redemption of Jesus Christ and offers a way for us to buy our way into it. It would seem that God's people simply do not want to believe that God is capable of doing anything solely by His grace. We don't want to surrender to Him and leave the outcome of these matters in His hands. We don't want to pay the real price of faith and obedience -- our flesh -- and allow God to do things His way. No, we have to come up with a gimmic -- a way in which we can get God moving on OUR terms. One of the most terrible consequences of this kind of teaching involves unbelievers.

Because those who teach this particular heresy are, for the most part, the very ones who control the Christian television networks around the world, they are the ones who are the most visible to the unbeliever. How many people have been given reason to reproach and mock the name of Christ because of those who claim to represent Him? In the day and age when Christainity could be the most visible witness, it is the most visible misrepresentation of God. The flock is being fleeced and misled. And believers and unbelievers alike are being lied to about God. God has never tied a single blessing He offers us in Christ to money. In fact, He has never tied it to anything we do. He offers it one hundred percent free of charge, and beckons us -- not to make ourselves fit for it -- but to allow Him to make us fit for it in His Son. That is the gospel of grace. And any teaching which denys it is not merely a slight departure from the Truth. It is a denial of the very foundation of Christianity: Jesus Christ. Why a reformation? – WELS Luther’s excommunication Why a reformation? The Reformation—the word still conjures up images and excitement whenever we hear it.

We picture that determined German monk nailing his ninety-five theses to the Wittenberg church door and later on taking his stand before the emperor and church representatives at Worms. What he said and did back there in the 1500s quite literally changed the history of the church and the world. Heady stuff. But the Reformation didn’t start with Martin Luther, nor did it end with him. Rather, what happened was this: From the beginning the church faced a host of challenges which threatened to destroy the teaching it had received from its Lord. To these challenges, which more and more became crises, the church responded. Challenge and response, the structure of world history which Arnold Toynbee detected, is clearly obvious in the specific matter of the history of the Christian church. Even before Luther’s time, the church’s response to the challenges it faced had become so insistent that response had turned into reformation. With Luther this response reached its high point, and since Luther the church has continued to face even more challenges to which it must respond. Response, then, still leads to reformation, to re-forming in line with God’s truth. Ecclesia semper reformanda—the church is always in the process of being reformed.

Though any person may observe challenges and responses, deformation and reformation, in the church, only the person of faith will see the hand of God in the whole process. For God is always watching over his church and his truth. Excerpt from Martin Luther and the Long Reformation by James Kiecker , used with permission of Northwestern Publishing House . Luther’s reformation When Luther came on the scene, his response to this blatant sinfulness in the church was in many ways like the response of a lot of other people before him. But it was also different. Luther didn’t start out by condemning the immorality and the love of money in the church. Rather, he started out by responding to the spiritual condition in his own heart. However, by the time he was finished, he was making the ultimate response to unscriptural theology and corruption in the papacy and monasticism, the very things that had been plaguing and disturbing the church for so long. Excerpt from Martin Luther and the Long Reformation by James Kiecker , used with permission of Northwestern Publishing House .

About indulgences During these early years, Luther criticized the corruption in the church through sermons, and, in private letters, began to wonder if the pope was the Antichrist. He had seen things firsthand in Rome during a visit in 1510 and 1511, so he had plenty of background knowledge. But his expressions were hardly more critical than what other concerned priests of his day and before him had said and written. If he had done nothing more, he wouldn’t be remembered today. Then a situation arose in which the problem of sin, which he had just solved so successfully for himself, was being handled in a totally different, and to Luther’s way of thinking, a totally wrong way. In many respects this situation displayed just what was wrong with medieval theology. Temperamentally, Luther couldn’t let this slide. So he went on the attack. The situation was the selling of indulgences, sort of what we might call letters of acquittal. Though the idea of indulgences, as we’ve already seen, had been around for hundreds of years, the meaning was not clearly fixed.

Nevertheless, it went something like this: You sinned badly, a “mortal” (deadly) rather than a “venial” (small, easily pardonable) sin. You went to a priest and confessed. You were told your sin was forgiven. But first, before the forgiveness was effective, you’d have to perform some act of satisfaction, some penalty to show you were sincere about your confession. Failure to do this penance could result in hundreds or thousands of years in purgatory, which was considered a sort of intermediate stage. It was first of all this temporal penalty which could be removed by buying one of these letters of acquittal. It was said that this was possible because of a “treasury of good works” (or “merits”) accumulated by God’s people over the centuries, much more than those individuals (the “saints”) needed for themselves. When an indulgence was bought, good works from this general treasury were transferred to the buyer’s account, making it unnecessary for him to perform the given penalty. So much for the temporal penalty. There would also be the eternal penalty laid on the person by God.

But, over the course of years, it had been suggested that this eternal penalty, like the temporal one, could be removed by an indulgence, yes, even the sin itself could be canceled by an indulgence. At the height of the indulgence-selling frenzy in the early 1500s, it was believed that you could even cover the penalties and sins of other people, even dead ones, by the indulgence you bought. There seemed to be no limit to what one of these remarkable documents, in a wide variety of price ranges, could do. Quite literally, a person could buy from God the forgiveness of sin for money. How could this possibly be squared, Luther wondered, with justification by faith? In fact, it couldn’t. When the seller of the latest papal indulgence, John Tetzel, started pushing his product quite close to Wittenberg with the most extravagant claims and commercials (“as soon as the money in the chest rings, the soul from purgatory springs”), Luther called for a public debate on just what indulgences could and couldn’t do.

The date was October 31, 1517; the place was the community bulletin board (the door of the Castle Church); the form was ninety-five short propositions or “theses.” At this point Luther was not against indulgences, only what he considered their abuse. The theses still accept the ideas of purgatory and papal authority, though one detects a note of skepticism about all these things. Thesis sixty-two sounds the note of what’s coming: “The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God” (LW 31:31). That’s the treasure that Christians should depend on, not a supposed treasury of good works. Luther himself had fallen back upon this true treasure to respond to the sin and fear in his own heart. Now he was advocating the use of this true treasure by everyone, rather than a reliance on indulgences. A blow was being struck against a thousand years of mistaken theology and deformed church organization. Excerpt from Martin Luther and the Long Reformation by James Kiecker , used with permission of Northwestern Publishing House .

Luther’s excommunication In November 1519 the Curia met in Rome to discuss the steps that should be taken to stop Luther. Eck urged that the pope should act immediately to silence once and for all “that beast of Witten- berg,” as he called Luther. The Curia decided, however, to make another attempt to get the Elector Frederick to surrender Luther to Rome. Frederick replied that arrangements had already been made for a meeting between Luther and Miltitz. At that meeting the archbishop of Trier was to serve as judge. The meeting with the archbishop, however, did not take place; but that, he said, was through no fault of his own. Frederick also made it quite clear that he had no intention of surrendering Luther to Rome. He was deter- mined that his famous university professor should have a fair trial, and he knew that he would not get that in Rome. So the elector informed Luther that it was his plan to take him along to the diet at Worms, where his case could be heard. In March 1520 the pope appointed a commission of four with Eck as chairman. This commission was ordered to draw up a bull of excommunication against Luther.

On June 1st the bull, or papal pronouncement, was unanimously accepted by the cardinals. On June 15, 1520, the pope signed the bull and affixed the papal seal. It was ready for printing and for distribution throughout the church. The bull was a lengthy document that listed and condemned forty-one of Luther’s writings. In it the pope lamented that anything so wicked could have taken place among the Germans for whom he always had a special affection. He called God to witness that he had done everything possible to bring Luther back to the fold of the church. The bull stated that Luther’s attacks on the papacy and his false teaching dare not be tolerated. It then condemned Luther as a heretic and stated that he would be excommunicated unless he recanted within sixty days. Excommunication meant that he could not partake of the sacraments of the church, his property would be taken away from him, and all his writings would be burned. After his excommunication he would be in great danger of being put under the ban of the state, cruelly punished, and possibly put to death.

Martin Luther: A Journey to the Heart of Reformation DVD at Christian Cinema.com Description: Experience key places in the life of MARTIN LUTHER When Martin Luther's bold protest was nailed to the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, he little realized the storm that would break as a consequence. The event shook the medieval church to its foundations and changed the religious and political world forever. In Luther's time the Church held sway. Luther's actions, however, or rather his reaction to a monk called Tetzel, the seller of papal indulgences, was to wrest power from the church and light a beacon which would illuminate all of Europe, and then the world! This documentary, MARTIN LUTHER: A JOURNEY TO THE HEART OF REFORMATION, filmed on location in Germany, takes you to the key places in Luther's life. To Eisleben, his birthplace; to Erfurt where he studied at the university and where he served in the monastery; to Wörms, scene of the famous Diet; to Wartburg Castle, where he was held prisoner; and to Wittenberg the setting for most of his life's work.

In Wittenberg, you will see the famous doors where his 95 theses were nailed, the church where he preached, the university where he taught, and the building where he lived. Martin Luther: A Journey to the Heart of Reformation DVD Details: MPAA Rating: Martin Luther: A Journey to the Heart of Reformation - DVD – Anello A, 04/21/2014 (no written review given) Martin Luther: A Journey to the Heart of Reformation - DVD – Cheryl B, 07/18/2013 this DVD was done well and gave me a new look at Martin Luther. The info was priceless.

Thanks for being a Christian DVD store Martin Luther: A Journey to the Heart of Reformation - DVD – Dale H, 05/07/2013 (no written review given) Martin Luther: A Journey to the Heart of Reformation - DVD – Roberto B, 10/23/2012 (no written review given) Martin Luther: A Journey to the Heart of Reformation - DVD – William R, 05/11/2012 (no written review given) Martin Luther: A Journey to the Heart of Reformation - DVD – Lauren K, 04/26/2012 Good basic history of Martin Luther. Martin Luther: A Journey to the Heart of Reformation - DVD – Milton K, 12/01/2011 (no written review given)

Question: What is/was a seller of Papal indulgences called?
Answer: A PARDONER